


Let Go

by sinivalkoista



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Angst, Angst and Feels, Arthur Knows About Merlin's Magic (Merlin), Blood and Gore, Buried Alive, Dark Magic, F/M, FebuWhump2021, Hurt/Comfort, Impaling, Imprisonment, Injury, Insomnia, Magic, Mind Control, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Stabbing, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:48:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 11,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29146212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinivalkoista/pseuds/sinivalkoista
Summary: Febuwhump 2021 featuring Merlin.(Read at own risk.)
Relationships: Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50
Collections: febuwhump 2021





	1. shuffle through my day, caught up in the way

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt #1: Mind control
> 
> I'm not too happy with how this first one turned out, but I'm not a huge fan of "mind control" fics in general.

**shuffle through my day, caught up in the way**

There’s magic underneath his fingers, twisting through the air.

It wraps around his arms and legs and his neck, clinging to him like leeches or the tentacles of a magical beast hoping to drag him down to the depths of wherever it comes from. 

When he inhales, it seeps into his body through his mouth and his nose, blocking out everything else.

When he closes his eyes at night, it is there, lurking behind his eyelids, pouring into his brain.

When he opens his eyes in the morning, it is there, pushing him out of bed, willing him to get working, get moving, get going.

Sometimes, he thinks he wouldn’t be able to move without the magic. Wouldn’t be able to keep up his duty, protecting everyone and hiding who (or maybe  _ what,  _ his mind occasionally thinks) he really is. Without his magic, he would be a speck of dust among unwashed masses. A nameless farmer boy from a nameless village. Nothing special about him. Without his magic, he would be as dead as bones. 

If he ever feels like pushing it away, he remembers this. 

The magic is there for him. It shows him what to do, keeps him from having to actually really  _ think.  _ Some days, it feels like he’s walking on a cloud and the rest of the world is spinning out of control, and he  _ likes  _ it that way because thinking would mean feeling and feeling would mean being torn apart from inside by all of the lies, all of the deception, all of the hurt of being what he is in the world that he is in.

It’s nice, not having to force his brain to work for him. Magic is there. Magic takes care of everything. All he has to do his shuffle through his day as though he were nothing more than a puppet directed by its master’s strings. 

(Maybe if he weren’t so tired from the constant pull of energy, maybe if he weren’t so exhausted and fuddled from drinking in magic all day long, he would be able to see the concerned glances that everyone sends him.)

…

Arthur knows something’s not quite right with his manservant, but he can’t put his finger on it.

Merlin stumbles through his chores in a daze, nodding and smiling inanely at Arthur. Although his brain is quick with comebacks, an element of  _ slowness  _ hangs around Merlin. As though he is present physically but elsewhere in his mind. His manservant is being drowned in front of him even though they're nowhere near a body of water and Arthur can see his thin frame move up and down every time he breathes. 

If Arthur didn’t know any better, he would think Merlin was addicted to drugs or bemuddled by magic.

(But the idea is ridiculous, of course.) 


	2. When I Think Too Hard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #2: "I can't take this anymore"

**When I Think Too Hard**

Merlin woke up with sticks and stones digging into his back.

Groggily, he sat up, a hand flying to his forehead as he tried to remember what had happened. Leaves were stuck in his hair, and he pulled them out to stare at them. They were a cross between brown and green, but he didn’t get to study them for long because they fell from his hand at the next rustling breeze.

For a moment, at the touch of the cool, his head spun, and he wondered if he had hit his head. Whenever he tried to pull himself to his feet, however, he found out what was wrong.

His back was in  _ agony.  _ It felt as though someone had poked him with an iron brand and the metal had melted and leaked onto his skin.

Through the daze of pain, he tried to piece together what he had been doing before he had been rendered unconscious. Something with-

Oh.

He remembered.

The pain in his back was now nothing compared to the thoughts racing through his head.

He needed to return to the castle. Arthur would be expecting him in the morning, and he would be furious with Merlin if he were late even though Merlin felt as though he had been chewed on by a dragon.

To haul himself to his feet, Merlin used the last bit of his energy, the world swimming before his eyes.

For a moment, he braced himself against the nearest tree and breathed in and out.

It was silent in the forest. It was peaceful.

Merlin had almost died a foot from where he was standing.

Funnily enough, the thought was more comforting than it should have been. 

…

He stumbled back into the physician’s chambers.

Although he expected the lights to be off (the normal hour at which Gaius usually retired had passed long ago), the chamber was fully lit by a myriad of candles and several lanterns. 

“Merlin!”

Relief flooding onto his face, Gaius stood from where he had been waiting at the table.

“Gaius?” Merlin was confused. He didn’t understand why Gaius would be waiting for him when he had only gone out to the forest after the physician should have fallen asleep. “What are you doing up?”

“What am  _ I  _ doing up?” Gaius’s eyebrows shot up. “Merlin, you’ve been missing for three days.”

Three days?

Three days…

Merlin made it to the table and sat down hard, sending more shots of agony through his back. He grunted.

Instantly, Gaius moved to grab some potion from the shelves, but Merlin barely cared what he was doing. He pressed his forehead into the table in front of him. The wood was smooth from years of objects sliding over it, and it was cool to the touch.

“I was worried about you,” Gaius was saying. “I told Arthur you were in the tavern-”

_ In the tavern.  _

Merlin squeezed his eyes shut. Morgana hated him - wanted him dead, tried to kill him. And Arthur thought he was a useless, good-for-nothing, idiotic, stupid - the tavern. He always thought Merlin went to the tavern. That Merlin was a drunkard shirking responsibility.

If he died, would Arthur have discovered the truth? Would he hate Merlin, too, for everything he had done in attempting what he wanted to do? In trying to save Camelot?

He wasn’t sure when he started crying, but suddenly, he felt Gaius’s hand on his back. 

“It’s all right, Merlin,” the older man murmured.

“I can’t take this anymore.” Merlin scrambled to find the right words to use through the exhausted mess in his mind. “I feel like I’m drowning. I feel like I can’t win, Gaius.”

For several minutes, there was nothing but the sound of Merlin trying to regain control over himself. He didn’t understand why it suddenly felt like the sky itself were pressing down on his shoulders, like if he lay down he wouldn’t be able to get up again, like he were an empty shell being filled by what he was supposed to do.

It  _ hurt.  _

“It  _ will  _ be okay, Merlin,” Gaius said eventually, but his voice was just as worn and tired as Merlin felt.


	3. It's Most Definitely the Drugs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #3: Imprisonment

**It’s Most Definitely the Drugs**

The metal’s rubbing raw against Merlin’s wrist, but he can’t really feel it anymore because his arms went numb hours ago. 

(It’s both a blessing and a curse.) 

He can, however, feel the burning pain shooting up his shoulders from the muscles being stretched too far. 

Really, if it were any other prison, he would have escaped by now. The guard rotation is terrible, and a two-year-old child could pick the lock on the door. They completely forgot to search him before bringing him in  _ while he was unconscious,  _ and even though he is entirely grateful for their oversight, he can’t quite forget or ignore the one thing they  _ did  _ notice.

His magic.

The combination of whatever cuffs they slapped on him and the myriad drugs they forced into his body after he took the blow to the head are doing a number on both his magic and his vision.

His ears are ringing, and he can barely see straight. He knows there’s only one way in and out of the cell that he’s in, but the way his head is tilted makes it look like three doors are there.

He can barely  _ think  _ straight, too.

His thoughts are tripping over each other. In his mind, he can barely string two sentences together before the words fall away, and he’s staring at the wall trying to remember why he’s sitting there and why his arms are hurting and why there’s pounding and throbbing in his head and his side-

Oh, his side.

That’s right. 

He was stabbed.

He returns to this thought a lot, trying to reconcile with a nonexistent memory of what happened hours or days ago. 

He can feel the blood trickling down the skin stretched over his ribcage before it disappears into the ground, its wet redness painting his skin.

Did it really happen, or is a spider crawling over him and causing a misleading sensation?

If he were to look at it, he would be alarmed, but his eyes are closed because the more light he sees, the less he seems to be able to think. Darkness is important to thinking, and thinking is very important. 

Arthur doesn’t believe that Merlin uses his head, and Merlin would normally contest that. He has to think a lot in order to keep his magic hidden and all of the lies he tells to cover it up straight, but he must not have been because he’s here, and he isn’t sure Arthur is going to rescue him because Arthur  _ knows- _

His head is spinning. He’s not sure if it’s from the drugs or the blood loss.

Half to himself, he laughs.

Maybe the drugs? Definitely the drugs?

Blood loss. Drugs. Blood loss. Drugs.

Merlin can’t decide whether or not he should be worried most about the rugs, the blood pittering against the dirt, or the prospect that Arthur  _ knows  _ and might not be coming back.

He is half-lucid. Once, he blinks, and the day turns into night. A lulling melody in his head chants  _ sleep, sleep, sleep,  _ so he does because it’s easier than being angry at his own stupidity or because he can’t find, can barely touch, can  _ almost reach  _ his magic.

It’s like a blanket’s been draped over his head.

He cares, but he doesn’t.

He’s awake, but he isn’t.

It’s night, but it’s day.

He blinks, and he is no longer in a cell but in his own bed at Camelot, the concerned faces of Arthur and Gaius staring down at him.

But that can’t be right, so it’s most definitely the drugs. 


	4. With My Last Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #4: Impaling

**With My Last Breath**

There’s blood gurgling up from her throat, flooding into her mouth, and sliding across her teeth. It tastes coppery and dull and bitter. 

When her lips part, a drop splatters across her chin.

“I’m sorry.”

She would look down, notice the red staining her grey gown, but her eyes are locked on blue ones that are glassy with tears - tears for  _ her.  _

“I’m sorry,” he repeats.

It isn’t as though the dress isn’t already ruined, but Morgana’s never been one for fashions or silks.

“Oh,” she says because it’s the first thing that comes to her mind, normally quick and sharp but now sluggish.

She can’t move. A wall is against her back, and it’s one of the only things keeping her from crumpling to the ground like a rag doll, torn and muddied and abandoned.

(That and the long sword pinning her to it.)

As each second passes, she is increasingly aware of the pain shooting through her abdomen, but she’s oddly at peace. Numb.

She is dying.

As her life flows out of her, her anger sparks to life. 

“Sorry?” she spits, blood flying from her mouth. “ _ Sorry?”  _

His words are pathetic to her, as worthless as he is. He is  _ nothing.  _ He is a peasant born in the heart of another country. She is a high priestess of the Old Religion, and nothing should stand in her path.

But here he is.

He’s done it.

His magic is greater than hers, she now realizes, and she severely underestimated what Merlin is capable of.

And he is  _ apologizing  _ to her for ruining everything she’s ever worked for.

Morgana laughs, reveling in the feel of blood pouring down her chin. “ _ Sorry?”  _ she echoes again, her voice filled with the venom lurking, saturating her heart. “You  _ impale  _ me and say  _ sorry?” _

Was she a joke to him?

He reaches out to do something - with magic or manually, but she doesn’t care. She raised a hand to stop him.

The muscles in her forearm tremble with the effort and energy that is slowly draining from her body with blood.

“No,” she spits. 

“I can-”

“No.”

“Morgana, please, I can  _ heal-”  _

She glares at him. “What are you going to do then, Merlin? Lock me away? Take away my magic?” Her laugh is low and gravely. “I don’t think so. I would  _ rather die.”  _

Merlin looks so lost, so pitiful, so  _ regretful,  _ so - she  _ wants  _ him to hurt from this. She  _ wants  _ him to know what he did with his magic. 

When she dies, she wants him to never forget, to forever feel the pain.

“I’m sorry.”

With her last breath, Morgana curses him.


	5. No, Really, Take Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #5: "Take me instead"

**No, Really, Take Me**

Arthur has never been more humiliated in his life.

He’s the champion of Camelot. He’s always prided himself that there isn’t a man who can beat him in the art of swordcraft and likes reminding others of it. Each day, he trains until his muscles ache and the sweat pours down his forehead but his sword swings through the air in a deadly arc of metal.

But here he is, disarmed, with his hands tied behind his back and blood dripping down his face from a gash in his forehead. It hasn’t bled much, but the longer it continues, the woozier he knows he’s going to feel.

“You won’t get away with this,” he threatens. 

“Who’s going to stop us?” one of the ruffians drawls. “The queen?”

Gwenieve would take great delight in hitting them over the head with the flat of any sword, but she also isn’t there, so Arthur is left to glower at them.

“Load him up into the wagons with the rest of them,” the head ruffian (Arthur’s named him Grumpy in his head because so far, the man has watched the entire proceedings with a scowl etched on his face despite the profit that the ordeal must be bringing him) barks.

Arthur is pushed into the back towards one of the wagons, which are only filled with one or two people but are bound to be crammed later.

“Hey!”

Under his breath, Arthur curses, but nobody hardly pays any attention to him because their focus is on the source of the voice -  _ Merlin.  _

_ Fantastic.  _ Now the knights were going to have to rescue  _ two  _ people. If Merlin just  _ stayed where he was supposed to be- _

“You don’t want him,” Merlin was saying. “He’s a real pain in the...well, a pain somewhere. Take me instead!”

The ruffians look at each other, their faces saying what one person dares to voice: “Who is that  _ nut?”  _

“He’s a buffoon,” Arthur scoffs. “Hardly worth any of your time.”

“Seriously, you don’t want him,” Merlin repeats, coming down the slope of the hill that hid the attackers from Arthur earlier. “He’s an  _ awful  _ captive. I mean, he  _ smells,  _ for crying out loud. Have any of you been near his underarms lately?”

Even though his arms are tied behind his back, Arthur brings his shoulder up to his nose. 

It isn’t  _ that  _ bad.

Merlin probably smells worse, anyhow.

“And, come on, let’s face it, if you want to make a  _ good  _ profit, you need to pick someone who’s a little less  _ fat  _ and who doesn’t have scores of men willing to rescue him,” Merlin points out. “If you take me, everybody lives. You get your profit, you don’t get hurt. It’s a win-win.”

Arthur snorts. As if they won’t send men to rescue Merlin. “Don’t listen to him. He’s absolutely, utterly ridiculous and a  _ simpleton  _ who-”

His vivid description of Merlin’s thinking capabilities is interrupted by a second voice.

“Hullo, there! Hey, Merlin, mate.”

Gwaine.

“What are  _ you  _ doing here?” Merlin asks, echoing Arthur’s thoughts.

“Someone grab the thin one,” Grumpy says. “I don’t have the time to deal with-”

As he joins Merlin at the base of the incline, Gwaine raises his hands, grinning in his typical swash-buckling manner. “Now, you don’t want  _ Merlin.  _ He’s barely got any muscle on him. If you’re looking for a fine specimen that will bring you a nice profit in the market,  _ I’m  _ the clear choice.”

“Gwaine, shut up,” Artur hisses, but no one except the confused ruffian making sure he doesn’t make a run for the hills (literally) pays him any attention.

“Ha!” Merlin huffs. “You can _ not  _ be serious. You don’t want _ him _ .” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder at Gwaine. “He has an affinity for the bottle, if you know what I mean. If you take him, you’ll have to deal with the  _ withdrawal  _ and the crankiness and the anger-”

“Well, at least you’ll get some work out of me instead of  _ that  _ green bean!” Gwaine declares. “Merlin, mate, you’ve really got to put some meat on your bones.”

“I’ve been telling him that for years,” Arthur complains, shouldering past his guard slightly. “He makes the rest of us look bad. You’d think he doesn’t eat.”

Merlin throws his hands wide. “All the more reason why you should take  _ me  _ as the captive. I mean, I’m going to eat as much as  _ either  _ of those pigs, so-”

“Which means you won’t have as much muscle, either,” Gwaine finishes for him, grinning triumphantly, “so you might as well take me. I’ve obviously got the best-”

“You should take me,” another voice breaks into Gwaine’s description of his best physical features from the hill, and Arthur recognizes it as Lancelot.

Arthur rolls his eyes. This is getting a little ridiculous. 

“I don’t drink, eat enough, and have plenty of muscles,” Lancelot advertises with a smile that makes more than a few of the castle maids swoon even though Lancelot remains oblivious to the facts. 

“I’ve had enough of this nonsense!” Grumpy roars, brandishing his mace. “Grab the three of them-” He points the weapon at Merlin, Lancelot, and Gwaine “-and throw them in the back of the wagons with the fatty one-”

Arthur bristles, but before he can protest, a  _ fourth  _ voice rings out from behind him.

“Halt!”

Arthur turns around.

Surrounding the scene are Percival, Leon, and Elyan as well as at least twenty other armed men of Camelot.

There’s a shout (Arthur’s not really sure if it comes from one of his men or Grumpy’s), and the area quickly dissolves as the two groups begin to clash.

Before Arthur can figure out his own plan of actual, Merlin’s there, his lip already spit and a grin on his face.

Arthur holds out his bound hands. “Get this off me.”

After an agonizing minute as Merlin picks at the knots, the rope falls off, and Arthur cracks his knuckles. His wrists are chaffed, blood is still dripping down the side of his face, and his shoulder is sore, but he dives into the fight.

(Not, of course, before telling Merlin to stay out of the way before he gets himself hurt.

Merlin doesn’t listen.)


	6. i'll sit with you for a while

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #6: Insomnia

**i’ll sit with you for a little while**

Arthur jerked awake.

He wasn’t quite sure what poked him back into consciousness so abruptly, but it wasn’t rare for it to happen. Every once in a while, new sounds started him, and he hadn’t quite gotten used to the backfiring of a horseless carriage (Merlin called them cars), the rev of a mower of lawns, or the churning of the vacuum cleaner.

He’d gotten quite a few strange looks from the neighbors, but Merlin told him to ignore him since they were all part of the homeowner’s association anyways.

When Arthur had asked him if that was like the knights and the Round Table, Merlin had laughed until tears rolled out of his eyes before sobering up and telling Arthur that they were birthed from something evil.

Arthur carried a baseball bat when he went outside, just in case.

But it was the middle of the night, when most of those machines weren’t running, and the sound came from the first floor of the house.

Slowly, Arthur threw off the covers and slipped his feet into his slippers. Since Merlin refused to give him his sword back until he had “completely readjusted to life in the twenty-first century,” he snagged the baseball bat before tiptoeing from the room.

On his way down the hallway, he lightly wrapped his knuckles on Merlin’s door and hissed,  _ “Merlin.”  _ If there was a burglar, a little bit of magic wouldn’t hurt deter him or her from robbing the king of Camelot.

When Merlin didn’t answer his door, Arthur assumed that he was too deeply asleep and hefted the baseball bat to proceed down the stairs.

Each time he set a foot down on the stairs, they creaked, making him wince. Neither he nor Merlin had found that to be a problem until  _ now,  _ of course.

As he came to the bottom of the stairs, he saw a light on in the kitchen. Since there was a thin stretch of hallway before the open doorway into the kitchen, Arthur hugged close the wall. When he was at the door frame, he paused and hefted the bat.

He jumped into the doorway.  _ “Halt!”  _ he roared.

Something shattered.

Someone swore.

“Arthur! What are you  _ doing?”  _

“Merlin?” Arthur lowered the bat.

Merlin was bending down, using his fingers to scrape the larger shards of the mug he had been holding into one small pile.

After trying for a few minutes and getting frustrated, he flicked his fingers, and the shards flew into the trash can at the end of the counter.

“Merlin, what are you doing up at…” Arthur found the time on the microwave. “Three fifty-two in the morning?”

“I  _ was  _ getting something to drink.” Merlin sent a forlorn look at the trash can. “That was one of my favorite mugs.”

“Why don’t you just magic it back together or whatever you do?” Arthur asked, crossing over to grab his own glass from the kitchen cabinet for a drink of water while he was up.

Merlin’s look turned scathing, but he did use his magic to yank the pieces out of the trashcan and meld them together again.

Arthur waited until Merlin’s mug was full of steaming milk and he was leaning against the counter in a semi-relaxed position before popping the question again. “So what are you doing up?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

So Merlin was being obtuse this evening. Or morning. Whichever way.

“Well, you’re the one who woke  _ me  _ up with your thumping and banging. And here I was thinking that nothing could drag  _ you  _ out of bed.”

Merlin arched an eyebrow as he raised his mug to take another sip. “That’s assuming I went to sleep in the first place.”

Arthur frowned. “Trouble sleeping?” He lowered his voice. “Is it the homeowner’s association?”

Merlin rolled his eyes. “No, Arthur, when I said that about - you know, never mind.”

In Arthur, concern rose. “You’ve been up all night?”

“Something like that.” Without meeting Arthur’s eyes, Merlin took another long sip of his drink. Although Arthur waited, he did not indicate that he was going to say anything else about the matter. 

Oh. Merlin didn’t want to talk about it.

Ever since Arthur had returned, Merlin hadn’t wanted to talk about numerous things. Arthur understood that it was partially because Merin couldn’t let anything slip while he was Arthur’s manservant, but some of it stemmed from over a thousand years of keeping to himself.

Sometimes, Arthur was hurt that Merlin didn’t trust him that much, but he knew he would be cautious, caged if he were in Merlin’s shoes.

When Merlin caught the look Arthur was giving him, he seemed to curl in on himself. “Insomnia,” he said shortly. 

“Am I snoring too loudly?” 

Merlin had made a few comments after he first moved in. Perhaps that was the problem.

“No.” Even as he raised the mug to his lips again, Merlin’s eyes clouded. “Some people have problems with magic, and they didn’t like me. I guess I was thinking about that.” Almost absent-mindedly, Merlin set his mug down on the counter with a soft  _ clink  _ and began rubbing one of his wrists.

Although Arthur had adapted to wearing shorts and t-shirts, Merlin resolutely clung to his long sleeves.

The knowledge of what he had missed all the years he had been dead sometimes hit Arthur in the gut.

“Come on,” he said, abandoning his glass on the table and drawing Merlin’s attention.

Merlin scowled at him. “Put that in the sink. I’m not your manservant anymore. At least, not at four-o-two in the morning,” he grumbled.

“Forget the glass. Come on. I hear they have a nice travel television station on at this hour. Let’s go watch it.”

“At this hour?”

“Why not?”

…

Thirty minutes into the program on an Albanian castle that reminded Arthur of some that he had actually set foot in while visiting some of the stuffier, older nobles, Merlin fell asleep on the sofa, a small smile on his face.

For the first time since Arthur had returned, he looked a few centuries younger.


	7. Even More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #7: Poisoning

**Even More**

He wakes up, dons his boots, and walks out into a poisoned world.

They don’t know it. They don’t see it, the tendrils that run through their skin and their eyes and their hearts, squeezing the last bit of life out of them.

But Merlin can.

He knows it’s there. 

It’s always lurking underneath the surface, just like his magic, waiting to come out and strike at moments when he least expects it, when he’s most vulnerable, when he’s most open and revealed.

They hate him.

They don’t even know it, and if they knew, they would hate him even more.

He can’t even help it. He can’t stop the magic, he can’t stop being who he is, he can’t stop the wheels that are running the world and taking him forward to his fate.

He hates it. He loves them, but he knows that their love would turn sour if they ever discovered the truth. 

There’s poison in their minds, running through their hearts, and all he can do is stand there and watch them unknowingly turn against him even more. 


	8. Don't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #8: "Hey, hey, this is no time to sleep"

**Don’t**

Someone slapped Arthur, jolting him back into consciousness.

“What?” he tried to ask, but the word came out slurred and stupid. 

“Hey, hey, this is no time to sleep,” Merlin chided him. “Come on, Arthur, you’ve got to do your princely duty. Let’s get that blood pumping.”

Arthur’s mind spent a minute turning over what, exactly, was his princely duty before deciding that whatever it was wasn’t worth more than falling back asleep.

His blood could do with a little less pumping.

“Nope,” Merlin told him just as he gave his eyebrows permission to start drooping again. “We’re not doing that right now.”

“Leave me alone,” Arthur grumbled. Couldn’t Merlin just let him rest for  _ once?  _ He was always dragging Arthur away from some pleasant dream.

Somehow, Merin managed to throw Arthur’s arm over his shoulder without him noticing, but Arthur  _ did  _ pay attention when the world jolted and he was hoisted to his feet.

He looked down at his stomach. There was red. “Am I  _ bleeding?”  _

“Don’t look down,” Merlin advised grimly. “We have to keep moving. As soon as we’re far enough away, I can look at that. Just sort of...press something against it. Here.” With his freehand, he worked at the knot that was holding his neckerchief around his throat. After loosing it, he handed it to Arthur.

Dumbly, Arthur looked down at the familiar scrap of fabric. “I can’t use this.”

“Why not? I washed it before we left. I thought you would prefer using that over your own shirt.”

“But it’s your neckerchief.” If he used it on his would, it would be ruined.

“ _ Just use it.  _ We don’t have the time for you to waste.”

“Oh.” 

As soon as Arthur had the piece of fabric pressed up against his side sufficiently, Merlin was dragging him forward.

Arthur tried to help the process but felt very stupid for the amount of concentration he was having to force into moving his legs forward.

It felt like it should have been easier. 

(Arthur couldn’t figure out a way to fix the problem, though.)

Merlin was puffing and wheezing, but he was managing Arthur’s weight far better than Arthur thought he would have.

“There’s a cave,” Merlin huffed. “Up ahead. We can hide in there.”

Now that Merlin mentioned  _ hiding,  _ Arthur became aware of shouts echoing in the forest around them, muffled by the leaves of the trees.

“Are we being chased?” There was a short gap in his memory.

“ _ Yes,  _ you idiot. Why else would I be dragging you through a forest while you’re  _ bleeding?”  _

Oh, yes. 

“So we  _ are  _ being chased.” Why couldn’t Merlin just answer things plainly so he could understand them?

“You are  _ heavy,”  _ Merlin complained. “Have you ever considered going on a diet? Taking fewer rolls at the Michaelmas feast?”

Michaelmas. 

Arthur was looking forward to that this year. It would be a nice break from all of the magical problems that they kept running into. A time to relax and enjoy good food.

“Hey! What did I say about falling asleep - especially on top of me? Listen, if you just stay awake for  _ two  _ more minutes, we’re almost to the cave.”

Arthur was beginning to doubt the existence of this cave.

He was beginning to doubt a lot of things. Like the fact that falling asleep wasn’t worth being slapped again.

And Merlin’s medical capabilities. Although he wasn’t looking down (that encouraged falling asleep, which was apparently a big no-no), he felt a sticky substance leaking through Merlin’s neckerchief and onto his fingers.

As if they had teleported, they were suddenly in front of the side of a rock. 

“I don’t-”

His words were slurring again, but Merlin shushed him. Leaving gentleness somewhat to be desired, Merlin dropped Arthur on the ground, his back to the rock.

Carefully, he pushed aside a thick overlay of vines and moss that had clumped together.

“Sorry about this,” he grunted as Arthur blinked at him before he grabbed Arthur’s ankles and  _ tugged.  _

Arthur’s head whacked into the ground.

…

When he woke up, the first words out of his mouth were, “Am I dead?”

He didn’t think so, but he also vaguely recalled being dragged into a cave and hitting every conceivable rock and twig on the way before everything went dark. 

Literally.

Arthur could barely see five feet in either direction, and he could hear the soft  _ plink, plink, plink  _ of water dripping from somewhere.

“Of course not.”

“Oh.” That was good. Since he couldn’t see that well in the dark, Arthur felt his side. Surprisingly, bandages weren’t constricting his torso. “Was I bleeding?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh.”

“But not anymore. It looked worse than it was,” Merlin added on quickly. “It must have been the running and the adrenaline. Turned out to be hardly a scratch once I ran some water over it.”

“Oh.”

That was good. At the time, he had felt much worse. He’d thought he was on the road to bleeding to death, but his dazed mind must have manufactured that information.

“Are they still looking for us?”

Merlin crossed to the mouth of the cave and moved aside the vines to look out, letting some light trickle inside. “No. I think they were distracted by something or got waylaid. You were out for quite some time.”

“Huh.” 

Merlin didn’t move from his spot at the cave, staring out into the forest.

“Merlin?”

“Yes?” Merlin dropped his hand, letting the vines cover the doorway and block out the light once more.

“May I have your permission to fall asleep  _ now?”  _ Arthur asked somewhat sarcastically.

Arthur didn’t need the light to know Merlin was rolling his eyes. “Yes, Arthur.”

As Merlin maintained his vigil, Arthur fell asleep to the continuing sound of  _ plink...plink...plink.  _


	9. A Hint of Sunlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #9: Buried alive

**A Hint of Sunlight**

When he groggily wakes up, an empty void stretches out before him.

Puzzled, he blinks twice. 

Bits of dust float into his eyes. 

It is then that he realizes that his hands are pinned. Even though his eyes are itching and irritated and stinging from the unknown substance infiltrating them, Merlin can’t reach up and rub them. In fact, he can barely feel his fingers when he tries to curl them into fists.

He starts to panic.

His legs are in much the same position. Although he can wiggle his toes a little, the action sends pain lancing through his shin, so he stops. The longer he remains awake, the more he becomes aware of a pressure on his chest, keeping him from inhaling completely. If he breathes in too deeply, it feels like someone is driving a knife into his chest.

(Unfortunately, Merlin has first-hand experience with that sensation, but that is the least of his problems at the moment.)

“Hello?” he croaks.

His voice is weak and raspy; it sounds like it comes from a corpse instead of him, and it barely penetrates the gloom that is in front of him.

Although he tries to raise it, his words are quiet and empty compared to whatever is out there.

He is light headed.

Each breath feels harder than the last, and it almost feels like he is fighting a losing battle.

Dirt is pressing down on top and all around him, and with each passing second, it feels like it’s growing heavier.

Briefly, he wonders if his magic is the only thing between him and certain death underneath tons of earth, rock, and roots.

Maybe that’s why he can’t feel it. It’s beyond his reach because it’s trying to save him but still failing miserably.

He is so far beneath the surface of the earth that he can’t feel anything anymore.

If someone told him there is a sun, he would laugh, because it seems so far away right now.

It’s so dark that it doesn’t really make a difference whether he keeps his eyes open or closed anymore, so he leaves them closed because he thinks it might be easier to face his own death that way. If he doesn’t see it coming. 

His breaths are coming in shallow gasps that feel as though they are tearing up the inside of his throat and lungs.

He feels suffocated, shoved, crammed, packed into the space where the earth wants his body to be. 

He is crushed, and his body  _ strains  _ against the confinement, against the torture of being slowly lowered to a grave.

In the back of his mind, a pressure is building up, and it screams at him to  _ get out _ before it’s too late.

Using up the last of the air, he screams.

A wild force erupts from somewhere, and there are shards, shards, dust, ashes, and maybe the hint of sunlight. 


	10. Echoes in an Empty Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #10: "I'm sorry, I didn't know"

**Echoes in an Empty Room**

“When are you going to find yourself a girl?” 

Merlin nearly chokes when he hears the words, and Arthur takes satisfaction in making his manservant the one speechless for once.

“What?” Merlin is staring at Arthur as though he can’t believe what he just heard.

“I said, when are you going to find yourself a girl?” Arthur repeats, smirking. “Or are you deaf as well as daft?”

At the insult, Merlin scowls. “I heard you the first time. I just couldn’t believe such a childish thing came from  _ your  _ mouth.”

It’s Arthur’s turn to scowl. “It’s not  _ childish.  _ It was a simple question. Would you like me to repeat it for you? When are you going to-”

Glaring at Arthur, Merlin drops his armor onto the floor, and the clatter of the mental against wood cuts off the rest of Arthur’s sentence.

“I don’t need to ‘find a girl.’ I have enough trouble as it is getting  _ you  _ out of situations with the ones you come across.”

“Hmm.” Arthur disagrees. He’s never gotten into anything he can’t handle by himself. Sure, there have been one or  _ two  _ (and that’s being generous) that have tried to kill him in the past, but for the most part, Arthur’s done pretty well. 

Arthur flops down into his chair as he contemplates Merlin’s lack of a home life. “It wouldn’t hurt you,” he muses out loud. “You’re sort of scrawny, but women fall for that sort of thing. They like the idea that they can fatten up a man. Lots of cooking and nagging. It makes them feel needed.”

“Arthur, we are not having this discussion.”

Well, Merlin isn’t having it, but Arthur is. “Come on, Merlin, is there a girl somewhere in your life? You can tell me.” 

It would certainly explain all of the times Merlin takes off without explanation, disappears for days on end, and shows up late for work in the morning. Really, Arthur might even be a little more forgiving if he knows Merlin has a secret wife stashed somewhere amongst the plebians of the citadels.

As soon as he finishes laughing at the prospect of Merlin and a wife, of course.

Merlin ignores Arthur, and Arthur takes this as a sign that there  _ is  _ someone. Putting his elbows on his desk, he leans forward and grins at Merlin, who is acutely studying the state of Arthur’s armor like he’s never done before, only one side of his face visible to Arthur. “Come on, what’s her name?”

“There’s no girl,” Merlin maintains resolutely, his voice turning surly as he frowns.

“You can’t hide it from me. Did you really think I would believe the ‘tavern’ excuse?” 

Merlin pales.

Arthur is enjoying this maybe a little too much, but after everything Merlin has put him through, he feels that he somewhat deserves the chance to level the ground with his manservant. “I promise I won’t tell anyone,  _ Mer _ lin, as long as you let me meet her just once.”

“The tavern?” Merlin seethes, angling his face towards Arthur slightly. “The  _ tavern?”  _

Arthur doesn’t see what Merlin’s getting so worked up about. Gaius has told him  _ several  _ times that that’s where Merlin goes in his free time. 

“You want to  _ meet  _ her? No.”

Aha. “So there  _ is  _ a girl. What are you afraid of?” he goads. “Scared she’ll fancy me more than you?”

The corner of Merlin’s eye twitches. “Of course not. What’s there to fancy about you?”

_ Plenty  _ of things come to Arthur’s mind, but this is one of Merlin’s methods of distracting him from the matter at hand. “If you’re not afraid, what’s the problem with me meeting her? Is there something wrong with her?”

“You can’t meet her,” Merlin insists, abandoning all pretense of working on Arthur’s armor. “You just can’t.”

“Why not? Is there something wrong?” Arthur needles. “What is she, half-troll?”

In retrospect, the last comment may have crossed a line, but Arthur doesn’t have the privilege of that knowledge in that moment.

Merlin stiffens, and the ending of the words taste sour on Arthur’s tongue.

“Yes, something’s wrong,” Merlin tells him flatly. “She’s dead.”

Arthur’s chipper, teasing attitude is killed as quickly as if an arrow had struck it. 

It was almost as though the two of them are frozen in the room by the weight of Merlin’s words, and Arthur isn’t quite sure how to look or even talk to his manservant.

“I’m sorry,” he finally manages to croak out, “I didn’t know.”

He doesn’t know anything.

He doesn’t know what her name was or what she looked like.

Before, he didn’t even know that she existed. He thought she was a joke, some sort of a wraith of amusement.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and for once, he actually means the words.

Merlin snorts. “Yeah, well, aren’t we all?”

The sounds of his footsteps echo in the room as Merlin walks out.


	11. There Is a Tiger on Your Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #11: Hallucinations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not too happy with this one

**There Is a Tiger on Your Head**

There was a giant tiger sitting on top of Gaius’s head that he didn’t know about, and Arthur giggled. 

Really, he wasn’t quite sure how he knew what a tiger was, but he  _ knew  _ it had to be one. And Merlin.

Merlin was an elephant.

Arthur had seen a picture of an elephant in one of his old school books, and Merlin looked  _ just  _ like one.

“You’re an elephant,” he told Merlin.

“I’m sure.”

“Gaius, tell him that he’s an elephant. Make him believe.”

Even though Arthur couldn’t detect anything wrong with what he had just said, Gaius let out a sigh. “Sire, Merlin is  _ not  _ an elephant.”

“But he is!” Why couldn’t Gaius see it?

Maybe the tiger on his head was blinding him.

So, because he was nice and considerate, he pointed. “Tiger.”

Merlin swatted his hand down. “Yes, pretty tiger. Gaius, can you drug him?”

“Hey!” he protested, but they were suddenly pretending like he wasn’t even there.

“It would be unwise to give him anything until we determine what, exactly, is in his system.”

Well, that was an easy one. Arthur raised his hand. “I can tell you!”

Shocked, Gaius turned towards him and raised an eyebrow. 

“Rainbows and sunshine,” he confided triumphantly. He was floating on a bed of clouds, and they were really the softest things that he had ever felt. He waved his fingers through the golden clouds, and they parted slightly so he could see the color of his trousers.

He giggled.

“Gaius, you’ve  _ got  _ to figure out what it is,” Merlin begged him. “This is too weird. I can’t take it anymore. It’s messing with his head.”

Arthur wanted to see what other clouds there were. Huffing, he heaved himself to his feet. 

(It took several tries - for feeling fluffy, the clouds were  _ heavy.) _

“Woah, woah, woah.” Merlin grabbed him by the arms. “Just where do you think you’re going.”

Watching Merlin’s trunk flop back and forth was amusing. For several seconds, Arthur watched it, memorized, before he realized that Merlin was expecting an answer from him.

“To find more clouds! For Camelot!” Although he tried to pump a fist in the air, Merlin’s grip impeded him. 

“You’re not going anywhere.”

Really, he was the prince of Camelot. He could go anywhere he very well pleased. Maybe Merlin was grumpy because he wanted to come, too. Merlin was always trying to piggyback onto Arthur’s missions with some sort of excuse or another.

Conspiratorially, he leaned forward. “Do you want to come with me? We can escape from Gaius more easily if there are two of us.”

Warily, Merlin cast a glance over Arthur’s shoulder. “He’s standing right behind you, Arthur.”

“ _ Do you want to come with me?”  _ he whispered.

“All right, we’re going to sit back down,” Merlin announced cheerily, his attitude changing abruptly. “How does that sound, Arthur?”

“No. I want to find the rest of the clouds!” Angrily, he waved a hand at the door. 

The clouds were  _ waiting  _ for him. It would be rude to delay any longer, and unlike Merlin, Arthur was  _ perfect  _ in court protocol.

And the snake slithering across the floor  _ definitely  _ wasn’t court protocol.

“Merlin, get back!” he warned, jumping up.

A second later, he realized that there was nothing for him to jump up onto and that his boots just slapped against the ground again.

“What? What’s wrong?” This way and that, Merlin twisted as he tried to find it.

Really, how stupid could Merlin be? It was  _ right there.  _ Arthur was  _ staring  _ at it.

“The snake!” To get through Merlin’s thick skull, Arthur pointed.

Hissing, it slithered through Merlin’s boots, and Merlin was looking right out of it without seeing it. Honestly, how  _ thick was he?  _

“Get away from it!”

He bent down and tried to swipe at the snake with his hands.

“Woah!” Before he face planted into the snake, Merlin grabbed him. “Sit down, Arthur. Gaius, how long-?”

“I am  _ trying _ , Merlin.”

“Try faster.”

“Merlin, you have to move!” Arthur pushed Merlin to the side, sending him flying into the table.

“Sire!”

With the heel of his boot, Arthur stamped on the snake as Gaius rushed over to Merlin. “Don’t worry, I got it!”

Arthur was quite proud of himself. No one else had noticed the snake, but he was smart. He was  _ tricky.  _

“Take this, and press it to your forehead,” Gaius was telling Merlin. “Let me know if it doesn’t stop bleeding.”

Blood? That didn’t sound good. But Arthur was too busy trying to coax the deer that was lurking in the corner of Gaius’s rooms to come out to notice much about it.

“We’ve got to figure something out,” Merlin groaned behind him.

“Here, look in this book.” Something thudded. “The answer has to be among one of these.”

Oh, look, there was a mouse. Although Merlin and Gaius started flipping through books behind him, Arthur decided that it would be much more fun to try to capture the mouse than to dig around in the dusty old tomes that Gaius prized.

Carefully, he began tiptoeing, but it was rather difficult to keep his balance since the ground was covered with those clouds and he couldn’t tell the terrain.

Holding his hands out for balance, he began a stealthy approach towards the rodent, which was weaving in and out of some of Gaius’s elixir bottles.

It would never see him coming.

“Merlin, I’m going to catch a  _ mouse,”  _ he whispered.

“That’s wonderful.” More hurried page flipping.

Ha. The mouse didn’t seem to notice his approach.

“Merlin, it doesn’t see me coming.”

“That’s wonderful, Arthur.”

He could see its beady little eyes and furry body through the vials. It was sniffing the table as though it were after some crumb.

In preparation for capturing it, he cupped his hands together. “Here, mousy, mousy.”

Gracious, for being so old and stern, Gaius was somewhat of a messy person. Since when did he store a bunch of bottles on the table? They were even filled with all sorts of liquids. There was a yellow one, a clear one, a blue one…

The mouse stopped scurrying behind the blue one.

With carefulness, Arthur snuck up on the mouse.

At once, he yanked up the bottle.

The mouse was gone.

Perplexed, he blinked. He thought it had been there a second ago. Where had it gone?

Oh, well, it had probably fallen through a hole in the table or something. After all, it was as bespeckled as a skunk.

He looked down at the bottle in his hands.

Blue was a funny color for one of Gaius’s tonics. He wondered what its purpose was and if it was intended for someone specific. 

After yanking the lid off, he took a sniff.

_ Oooh.  _ That smelled nice. That smelled  _ almost _ nicer than Gwen (although Arthur would never admit that to her face).

Surely, if it smelled that good, it couldn’t be for something bad.

After sticking a finger inside, he took a taste.

_ It tasted better than it smelled.  _

Usually, it was the other way around.

And, on top of that, the monkey hanging down from the rafters was grinning at Arthur, nodding its head as though it were telling him it would be okay just to have a small taste.

Arthur chugged the bottle and plunked it back down on the table.

“What was that?”

For a second, the sound of pages flipping halted.

“Arthur, what did you drink?” Merlin cried.

“I...don’t know. It was good, though. The monkey approved.” Without his permission, his eyes crossed.

“The monkey?”

The bottle was snatched from Arthur’s hands.

“Gaius, what was in this?”

“That one? Ah…”

_ Woah.  _ Arthur didn’t know Gaius had painted his walls  _ pink.  _ It was such a  _ gaudy  _ color and reminded Arthur of that  _ one  _ dress Morgana had insisted on wearing to a ball when she was nine. Arthur thought she burned it later when her nursemaid wasn’t looking.

Or something like that.

In a circle, he spun, making a face at the walls. “Gaius, when did you do interior design?”

Forcefully, Merlin guided him back to the cot. “It’s all right, Arthur, just sit down here. We’ll get whatever’s wrong with you fixed.”

“It’s  _ not  _ all right.”

Merlin didn’t understand.

It was a  _ really  _ ugly color.

And it was swimming in front of his eyes in an alarming pattern that made him want to throw up.

So, because he was the prince of Camelot and they were technically his floors, anyway, Arthur upheaved the contents of his stomach.

“Oh, that is  _ disgusting,”  _ Merlin groaned.

“At least he missed your boots.”

“You’re right.”

Strangely, Arthur felt better. With the back of his hand, he wiped his mouth. “Merlin?”

“Yeah, Arthur?” Merlin gave him a few strong whacks on the back that dislodged more of the liquidy mix from the back of his throat.

“I think I’m ready to sit down now.”

“Oh, thank  _ goodness.”  _

…

“Don’t be  _ ridiculous,  _ Merlin. Everyone knows there aren’t any elephants or orangutans or  _ tigers _ around here.”

“Yeah,  _ everyone.  _ Everyone but you.”

“I resent your implication.”

“Ooh, that’s a big word. Did you learn it from the mouse you captured, O Great Jungle Hunter of Camelot?”

“Shut up,  _ Mer _ lin.”


	12. When We Connect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #12: "Who are you?"

**When We Connect**

His fingers gripped the fabric of Arthur’s coat, curling slightly as he anchored them into the fabric.

At the sudden weight and pull, Arthur jerked around until he faced Merlin. “Excuse me?”

As soon as he grabbed Arthur, Merlin released him. His fingers were trembling, and he could almost hear his heart galloping away within his chest.

Shaking his shoulders, Arthur straightened out his coat. “Do I _ know _ you?”

“Uh.” Merlin cleared his throat. His mind was blank. Funnily enough, when he had pictured this moment each night and every day, he had always thought  _ Arthur  _ would be the speechless one, not him. He cleared his dry throat. “Uh, yes, we’ve met before. If you want to put it that way.”

_ Met before  _ seemed to be too petty of a phrase to describe the years of friendship.

“Who are you, then?” Arthur sized him up, wrinkling his nose.

Merlin knew he didn’t look like much. The coat that he had thrown on that morning to keep out the chilly wind was worn and from his sling in 1932 as a professor (and he kept forgetting that he needed to redo the seam on the left shoulder, so a little stuffing was poofing out). Because he had developed a distinct distaste for polishing boots, his shoes were scuffed as well.

Arthur, on the other hand, was the epitome of a successful businessman. His  _ London Fog  _ coat looked as though it cost more than Merlin’s monthly rent, and his shoes were shinier than diamonds.

(He probably shouldn’t have touched the coat.)

Despite the posh exterior, Merlin couldn’t help but smile because it looks so inherently  _ Arthur,  _ the stuck-up prat that he was. Even if he didn’t remember who Merlin was, he was still himself at his core.

“Are you daft?” Arthur repeated, annoyed, as his cell phone went off. “I asked who you are.”

Merlin held out a hand for him to shake. “I’m Merlin.”

His hand halfway into his coat pocket, Arthur paused and tilted his head to the side. “Merlin?” he asked hesitantly.

Merlin smiled. “Yes, Merlin. And you?”

“Arthur,” he answered slowly, reaching out hesitantly. “Merlin, you say?”

When their hands connected, realization dawned on his face. 


	13. What Your Hear Behind Closed Doors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #13: Hiding Injury

**What You Hear Through Closed Doors**

When a knock echoed on the physician’s chamber’s door, both Gaius and Merlin froze.

“Who’s that?” Merlin hissed.

The person on the other side of the door knocked again.  _ “Gaius, are you in there? Have you seen Merlin anywhere?”  _

Both of them winced.

“Quick,” Gaius instructed, “go back to your room. Make sure you keep the rag on the wound and for lamb’s sakes, do  _ not  _ do anything to aggravate it.”

As Gaius helped him to his feet, Merlin hissed, and a new spurt of blood leaked out from the long gash in his side.

“I will get rid of him as soon as possible,” Gaius promised as he helped Merlin hobble over to his bedroom door.

_ “Gaius, are you in there? I can see the light under the door. If Merlin’s done something, there’s no use trying to hide it from me.”  _

If only Arthur knew. 

“One moment, sire,” Gaius called as he shut the door behind Merlin.

Cursing him for not being better at healing spells, Merlin slid to the floor, leaning up against the door to keep himself from crashing and making a noise that would attract Arthur’s attention.

The stab wound in his side did not appreciate it.

To keep himself from groaning out loud, Merlin held his free hand against his mouth in a fist as he pressed an ear against the door.

_ “What do you mean, he’s out?”  _ Arthur asked.  _ “He’s supposed to be helping  _ me.  _ That’s what I  _ pay  _ him for.”  _

“ _ I sent him on an errand, sir,”  _ Gaius replied calmly. “ _ I am positive that he will return by the end of the day.”  _

_ “The end of the day?”  _ Arthur echoed incredulously.

Merlin winced. Whether or not Merlin would be “back” by the end of the day depended on whether or not Gaius could get the blood to stop.

Speaking of which, he was beginning to feel a little light headed. He wasn’t sure pressing on the wound was working.

Or maybe he wasn’t doing it right.

It  _ was  _ a rather nasty stab wound.

_ “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, sire, I have a patient to attend to.”  _

Merlin closed his eyes.  _ That’s right,  _ he thought.  _ Get him out of here.  _

_ “Really?”  _

At Arthur’s arrogant, disbelieving tone, Merlin let out a little sigh that he immediately regretted when a stabbing pain shot through his ribs.

_ “Who is this ‘patient’?”  _ Arthur questioned. 

Merlin looked down at his side and immediately regretted it.

_ “Just one of the peasants, sire. No one to concern yourself with. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to return to him.”  _

“ _ Aha! So it’s a he!”  _

Muffled shuffling noises come through the door, then-

_ “Gaius, I know you’re trying to hide Merlin from me, and I don’t appreciate you helping Merlin cover up his drinking problem.”  _

_ “Drinking problem?”  _

Despite his light head, Merlin was incensed. “I don’t have a  _ drinking  _ problem,” he muttered to himself.

Although at the rate rogue sorcerers were trying to knock Arthur off, he was considering taking up the habit.

_ “Yes, his drinking problem!”  _ The level of frustration in Arthur’s voice rose.  _ “You are always telling me that he’s at the tavern, remember? You know what - I do  _ not  _ have the time to waste on chasing Merlin down. Whenever he comes back from the tavern, tell him that I want to see him.”  _

Gaius must have given Arthur a non-verbal agreement, for his boots thudded across the room, and the door to the rooms slammed.

A few seconds later, Gaius rapped on the door.

“I’m on the floor,” Merlin huffed. 

Gently, Gaius opened it, and Merlin made an effort to scoot out of the way but most failed.

He grinned up at the older man. “I was about to use my magic.”

Gaius did not find it nearly as funny as he did. “Come on.” He helped Merlin to his feet and back to the main room.

“It’s fortunate that he did not stay longer,” Gaius remarked, gently easing the cork out of a bottle and dousing a rag in it. “This is going to sting, but it will help stop the bleeding.”

Merlin braced himself.

When the foul-smelling police came into contact with the wound in his side, he swore.

…

Arthur was seething mad.

The chores he needed done were piling up, and Merlin was nowhere to be found.

Was this a fairly common occurrence that he should have expected at this point? Yes.

Did that make him want to throw Merlin in the stocks any less for shirking his duty? No.

_ Merlin was out.  _

As if. Merlin didn’t have a life, and if he had, then Arthur would know. There was nowhere else he would be besides the tavern, and he had already sent the knights around to each of them in search of his missing manservant.

So, the natural conclusion was that Merlin was in his room fending off a massive hangover from the previous evening.

And,  _ really,  _ Arthur had thought better of Gaius than to try to help Merlin cover up his growing dependence on alcohol. For crying out loud, he was a  _ physician.  _ It was his  _ duty  _ to ensure Merlin received the proper care because Arthur didn’t want to have to deal with  _ two  _ Gwaine’s on a weekly basis.

Talking with the elder man, however, brought about no results, and he found himself even more infuriated at their scheming.

He  _ knew  _ Merlin was the mysterious patient Gaius was hiding.

In fact, he would bet a handsome sum that as soon as he left…

Wait a second.

Arthur made a u-turn and headed directly back to the door to Gaius’s rooms. If Merlin felt the need to convince Gaius to lie to him about his whereabouts, he wasn’t going to feel the least bit guilty about eavesdropping on the two of them.

_ “Ow, that hurts!”  _

Merlin’s voice.

Arthur resisted the urge to scoff in triumph.

“ _ Well, what did you expect when you were stabbed in the ribs?”  _ Gaius replied, exasperated. 

Arthur almost barged in at that moment.

Stabbed? When had Merlin been  _ stabbed? _

Who would want to stab  _ Merlin?  _ The idea was ridiculous.

_ “Can I go to work tomorrow morning? Arthur is going to skin me alive.” _

Arthur could imagine the face Gaius was giving Merlin. Well, his manservant was right about that.

_ “We’ll see. Stay awake, Merlin.”  _

_ “Sorry.”  _

After several minutes of silence between the two, Arthur spun away from the door.

He didn’t know whether to be angrier at the fact that Merlin was lying to him or that Merlin had been stabbed by some unknown assailant.

Why was Merlin trying to hide it?

…

“So, Merlin,” Arthur began conversationally. “Been stabbed lately?”

Merlin started, dropping the pile of laundry that he had been carrying to Arthur’s wardrobe. “What? Stabbed? Don’t be ridiculous? Why would anyone want to stab  _ me?”  _

He laughed.

Arthur did not.

“Really. I heard a rumor around the castle that you’d been injured.”

“I don’t know who you heard it from, but she was wrong,” Merlin vowed, squatting down to pick up the laundry. “I’ve never been stabbed in my life.”

Arthur’s eyes narrowed. “There was that one time we were ambushed by bandits.”

“I’ve never been stabbed  _ on the sly  _ in my life,” Merlin corrected himself.

“You hid it for two days.”

“Details, Arthur.”

Arthur crossed his arms. “Well, my source is pretty reliable.”

Merlin straightened back up, the pile of laundry now a wrinkled mess in his arms. “Why does it matter to you that much, anyway?”

Arthur’s mouth worked for a second.

He didn’t know why it mattered that much. Merlin was just a servant. 

“If you were stabbed, I don’t want you bleeding out all over my rug,” he snapped. “So get on with it and lift up your shirt.”

Merlin raised his eyebrows. 

“My rug.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Merlin complained as if Arthur hadn’t heard Gaius tending to his wound hours ago. He tossed the clothes on Arthur’s bed and then turned around to Arthur. Rolling his eyes, he pulled up the hem of his shirt to reveal his ribs.

Which were fine.

Poking out a little, but fine.

“You...weren’t stabbed?”

Merlin dropped his shirt. “Of course not. Who would want to stab me? Do you mind if I finish my chores now?” he asked, his voice infused with sarcasm.

“Oh...yes, of course. On with it, now.”

Arthur scratched the back of his head.

He was fine?

Arthur would have sworn that he had heard the conversation between Gaius and Merlin.

But he had also seen with his own eyes that Merlin’s ribs were intact and unbandaged.

Perhaps he was going mad.


	14. Cold Stone, All Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #14: "I didn't mean it"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting these late because I have been dealing with some personal issues. Sorry!

**Cold Stone, All Alone**

“I didn’t mean it,” Arthur says, the words barely breaking through the air or making an impression. “I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.”

It’s perhaps the first time that Arthur has ever said them to anyone.

(He isn’t used to apologizing - with the knights, he claps them on the shoulder, and they understand what he means.)

Merlin never understood. Merlin always required more.

“I...I get it now,” Arthur goes on, trying to find the words.

Words are another thing that he has always struggled with. He can never string them together, ply them to make the sentences, the thoughts, and the feelings that he wants to say, that are swirling around in his head. He can only form them into insults and barbs.

Those don’t work, now.

“Just...just know I didn’t mean it. Any of it.”

(The tombstone he is kneeling in the grass in front of does not answer him, of course.)


	15. It's Coming for You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #15: "Run. Don't look back."

**It’s Coming for You**

_ Boom. Boom. Boom.  _

The noises came closer, closer, closer.

Arthur’s footsteps pounded against the ground in a much faster tattoo.

He didn’t know what was coming for him or what was waiting for him at the end of the tunnel. He could only keep running, hoping that whatever was ahead of him was better than what was behind.

It was gaining on him.

Arthur had never felt more terrified in his life than of what he had awoken from its slumber in the pits below.

In the dark, he could barely see more than twelve inches in front of him, so he stumbled and tripped over his own feet when he thought there was more room in a certain direction. Each time, he picked himself up and pushed on forward, winding through corridors and around corners, afraid that he had finally wasted too much time and was going to die.

He could hear it behind him, scratching, sniffing, biting, tearing in its quest to reach him.

He had to keep running.

He couldn’t stop.

(Until he was forced to.)

And hand reached out of the darkness and latched onto his arm.

“Let go!” he yelled, the words echoing in the confines of the cavern as he wrenched his arm from the stranger’s grasp.

“It’s all right.”

Merlin’s voice.

Arthur didn’t remember Merlin being anywhere near - he had left Merlin back in  _ Camelot,  _ not in the foul catacombs, and Merlin shouldn’t have  _ been  _ there when they were going to  _ die- _

“Keep going.” Merlin’s face was hidden, but his voice was calm, stoic, almost cold. “Run. Don’t look back.”

“Merlin, where are you going? Merlin!”

Merlin’s hand disappeared from his arm.

It felt as though some of the warmth had been sucked out of the underground prison.

Somewhere behind him, something roared.

Arthur ran.


	16. Will Never Hurt You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #16: Broken Bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having trouble getting these out because of personal issues. Sorry!

**Will Never Hurt You**

“And this is the right area?” Arthur asked Merlin, his voice filled with incredulousness. 

“Of course it is.” Merlin scrambled up the side of another rock, using his hands and his feet for holds.

A second after he stood, Arthur appeared behind him. He wasn’t too pleased at the route Merlin had chosen, but Gaius had assured him that it was the only one that would lead them to the sorceress they were looking for.

If she was there at all.

(Merlin thought it best not to mention that part to Arthur.)

“Why-” Arthur huffed, “-do sorcerers have to make it so ruddy hard to reach them?”

“To keep curious people like us from killing them?” Merlin guessed. If his magic were known (and that was a very weak  _ if  _ because Merlin never intended for his magic to be outed anytime soon nor to be banished for it), he would definitely hide himself away in an ethereal spot like this one.

“You are  _ strange,  _ Merlin,” Arthur said. “This is the  _ last  _ spot on earth I would want to live.”

Merlin shrugged. “To each his own.”

Despite what Arthur thought, the view from the height they were at was amazing. Merlin could see leagues of grassland stretching out before them.

“What are you waiting for?” Arthur asked, already craning his neck to look up at the next rock they had to climb.

“Sorry.”

Merlin turned away from the view.

“So what are we supposed to do?” Arthur asked in between huffs. “Get to a flat spot and yell for her?”

“Something like that.”

Merlin was still trying to figure out how he was going to distract Arthur long enough should something arise and he needed to use magic.

For the next ten minutes, they climbed in silence, punctuated by Arthur’s grunts and Merlin’s groaning every time he knocked his knee against the sharpest outpoint of the rocky craigs.

Eventually, however, they came upon a broken stone path amid the boulders that provided more stable footing and was less steep than their previous way.

To keep from slipping on the moss coating them and the cracks, Merlin kept his head down, so he did not see Arthur when he stopped.

“Watch where you’re going, you idiot,” Arthur snapped when he bumped into him.

“Sorry.”

The path had opened up onto a small flat area surrounded by blocks of stone that looked as though they had been crafted by man. Vines curled around them, causing them to start to crumble.

To reach the other side, they would have to cross it, but Arthur wasn’t moving.

“What’s wrong?”

Because of the narrowness of the path, Merlin couldn’t push past him without much trouble.

“There’s a skeleton. Leaning up against one of the stones,” Arthur said, his voice calmer than Merlin would have given him credit for.

“Oh.”

“It looks pretty old, though. Most of the bones are broken. Nothing to be worried about, naturally.”

“Of course.”

But Merlin didn’t miss how Arthur’s hand curled around the hilt of his sword or how he scanned the area for anything that could jump out at them.

“Is something wrong?” Merlin asked.

“No. Of course not.” Arthur released his sword. “Hurry up, Merlin. At the rate you’re going, we won’t find this sorceress by next week.”

Noiselessly, they crossed the courtyard.

Perhaps Merlin was just paranoid, but it looked as though the eyes of the cracked and crumbling skull watched them the entire time.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #17: Field Surgery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be the last one.

Arthur paced back and forth.

There hadn’t been much grass on the ground to begin with, but now all hope that any substantial amount of grass would grow in the near future evaporated.

“You’re killing all the vegetation, mate,” Gwaine pointed out quietly.

He was sitting on top of a crate, and Arthur didn’t understand how he could be so calm.

“We’re stranded in the middle of nowhere, and we don’t have proper medical supplies. We’re lucky enough as it is that Gaius was with us,” he pointed out. “If he weren’t here, Merlin would be-”

“But Gaius  _ is  _ here,” Lancelot broke in before Arthur could get too worked up, “and Merlin is going to be all right.”

_ All right,  _ Arthur thought bitterly. As all right as someone could be after being hit by an IED. Most died.

He hoped Merlin wasn’t like most.

Although Arthur had hated Merlin’s guts when they had first met, the raven-haired soldier had grown on Arthur like a younger brother (or a toe fungus, depending on how you looked at it). Now, he couldn’t imagine their unit without him.

And he was now facing that possibility.

It didn’t seem possible. Merlin was always squeezing through the riskiest situations and pulling them out of traps. He had an uncanny sixth sense for knowing when something was going to go wrong, so why hadn’t he recognized it  _ this  _ time?

It was taking every ounce of his carefully cultivated willpower not to duck back into the tent and demand to know what percent chance there was of Merlin surviving the night.

Gaius didn’t need that kind of distraction from Arthur.

Anything Arthur tried to do would only be a hindrance instead of a help when he could barely tell a scalpel from a needle.

The most he could do was wait until it was his turn on duty or Gaius emerged from the tent to tell them Merlin was either dead or going to make it.

(And they were the longest hours of Arthur’s life.)


End file.
